


Metamorphosis

by Riona



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26462764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riona/pseuds/Riona
Summary: Light doesn't sleep well for the first few days.
Relationships: slight Kira/Light
Comments: 12
Kudos: 23





	Metamorphosis

**Author's Note:**

> A line in the _Death Note_ manga that really caught my attention, when Light first meets Ryuk: ' _I admit, it's been giving me bad dreams and I've hardly slept the last five days. I've lost ten pounds._ ' It seemed like an interesting period to explore!

The first person Light killed – the first person whose name he wrote – was someone involved in a hostage crisis that was being broadcast live. The second was a man Light could see himself through a shop window.

He can’t only kill people in situations where he can see the results immediately. Someone will notice.

Who is the next one going to be?

A criminal, obviously. Someone who deserves it. Someone who’s been convicted and imprisoned, so their body will be discovered and the death will be announced. Not just for Light’s benefit, but to tell the world that someone is dispensing justice.

Maybe someone who isn’t Japanese. If he kills criminals across the world, the police won’t know where to look.

He remembers a recent incident in America, a mass murder that made global news. That’s a death that would definitely be reported.

He looks up the perpetrator’s name and photograph. Takes up a pen.

He breathes. The man he’s picturing will be dead in under a minute, if the Death Note’s power holds true.

Light is going to kill a third person.

Someone who deserves it.

He carefully copies the name into the Death Note.

He looks at his watch. He can feel sweat creeping over him, his school shirt getting uncomfortable, the air in his room too hot. Ten seconds, twenty.

He keeps seeing the lorry slam into that motorbike. Hearing the screech of tyres, the screams of that thug’s friends. If it had just been something he’d seen, rather than something he’d _caused_ , he could have talked to his family about it, or to a counsellor. He can’t let anyone know he was there.

Forty seconds.

Nothing happens.

Of course nothing happens. He doesn’t know what he was expecting.

Five thousand miles away, it’s possible that someone just died. There’s no way to know for sure, not yet. Maybe the first two deaths were some kind of impossible coincidence. Maybe there’s a distance limit on the Death Note; maybe this guy is too far away.

It doesn’t feel like he killed someone. It feels like he just wrote a name.

The next few names are a lot easier.

-

It’s only when his mother calls him for supper that Light realises he’s forgotten to eat anything all day.

The food is katsudon. It used to be a favourite of Light’s, before the Death Note. He picks at it.

Strange that he thinks it _used to be_ a favourite. It should still be a favourite now; he’s still the same person. It somehow feels like he shouldn’t _have_ favourite foods any more, like he should be above trivial opinions like that. He has the power to dictate who lives and who dies. Who cares if he likes katsudon?

His mother often puts on the news while they’re eating. He doesn’t know whether he wants her to do it today or not. He can’t _ask_ her to put it on; he can’t seem more interested than usual.

She turns on the television. Light tenses up.

The news reports on the mysterious deaths of twenty-three convicted criminals worldwide, in the span of a single day.

Light wrote twenty-eight names. Did he misspell? Did he not write clearly enough? Have some of the deaths not been discovered or reported yet? It’s too early, and there are too many possibilities; he can’t draw any conclusions.

There may be more. All he knows for now is that at least twenty-three people died today.

Because of him.

“Oh, Light, are you not feeling well?” his mother asks.

“Oh, sorry,” Light says. He forces himself to eat, to look as if he can actually taste it. “I was just distracted by the news. It’s strange, isn’t it?”

The authorities are mystified, according to the newsreader. Nobody knows what to think.

They’ll know what to think soon enough.

-

He’s writing names in the Death Note, staying focused on the website he’s copying them down from, and then he looks down and sees he’s written his own name.

His throat tightens. His chest constricts. His heart beats loud in his skull.

He scribbles his name out, so frantically that his pen rips through the page.

Will that make a difference? Will that do anything?

He doesn’t know if he was picturing himself when he wrote it. Why did he even...?

He tears the page into pieces and the seconds are ticking by and he doesn’t know—

-

Light wakes up gasping for breath. Like he’s been sleeping in a room without air, and the oxygen somehow only came back when he opened his eyes.

He rolls onto his front. He’s been crying in his sleep; he can feel the tears soaking into his pillowcase.

He lies there for a while, trying to settle down, until he gives up and crawls out of bed.

It’s two in the morning. He doesn’t want to go back to sleep.

He picks up the Death Note and turns on his computer.

-

He steps up writing names. He has a goal. He needs to stay focused.

It feels good, writing in the Death Note. Better than when he’s at school or in bed or with his family, when all he can do is think about it. When he’s actually _doing_ it, when he’s researching criminals and writing name after name, it feels like he’s in control.

The news that evening reports on another sixty-eight deaths, and Light’s surprised to realise that he can’t actually remember how many names he wrote.

-

He has strange, patchy dreams in the night. Sometimes it feels like he’s dreaming while lying awake.

His sister is convicted of mass murder. The largest atrocity in Japan’s history. Her name and face are broadcast worldwide. Everyone’s speculating on when the mysterious dispenser of justice will take her down.

Light is going to have to kill her. If she’s spared, the authorities will start to suspect the people close to her.

He sits in front of the Death Note, a pen in his hand. He’s shaking.

He’s going to have to kill Sayu.

-

Sayu catches him throwing up in the morning. She pokes her head around the bathroom door and asks if he’s pregnant.

She’s alive. A part of him wants to hug her.

But he’s not in the habit of hugging his sister out of the blue. She’d wonder why.

He flaps his hand in her direction like he’s swatting away a fly. “Stomach thing. Leave me alone.”

“Aw, feel better. You want me to tell Mom you can’t go to school?”

“It’s nothing. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” She closes the door and leaves him to his privacy.

Light splashes water on his face. Rests his forehead against the cool surface of the sink.

It’ll get easier. He can do this.

-

Light sits in class, struggling to keep his eyes open. And not just to keep his eyes open: to sit up straight, to look alert, to answer questions. He can’t let anyone think he’s behaving unusually.

It’s a struggle to retain anything. He’s so tired. He’d probably have trouble focusing even if he’d been sleeping properly; the Death Note is all he can think about.

It doesn’t feel like he’s slept in days. But he’s been dreaming, hasn’t he? He must have slept, at least a little.

They’re just dreams.

-

He dreams that he’s kneeling in front of a throne. There’s another version of himself on the throne, another Light.

There are wings rising out of the back of the seat, carved in dark wood. They cast strange shadows in the light of the candles surrounding them.

The other Light smiles. Light doesn’t have a name for him right now, but later the public will give him one: _Kira_.

“People are already starting to recognise us,” Kira says.

It’s true. It’s clear to everyone that someone has to be responsible for the mysterious deaths of criminals, three days in a row. Most people suspect an organisation. After all, how could one person be capable of anything on this scale?

A few people on the Internet are talking about divine intervention.

Kira stands up from the throne. He puts his shoe very deliberately on Light’s back. “Gods and human organisations. Which guess would you say is closer?”

“We’re one person,” Light says, as Kira’s foot forces him down against the floor. “We can’t be an organisation.”

The floor is solid stone. It hurts to be pressed so hard against it. But it feels good, too.

“But we can become a god,” Kira finishes for him.

He stoops down and grabs Light by the shoulder. Drags him over onto his back. Light gasps for breath, staring up at a ceiling too dark to make out.

Kira strokes Light’s face, temple to chin. Presses a thumb between his lips.

He’s not sure which Light’s perspective he’s dreaming from any more.

-

He wakes to find he’s fallen asleep at his desk, writing in the Death Note. There are indistinct characters scrawled across the page.

He jerks back like it’s ablaze under his hands.

He can’t let this happen again.

-

It’s a strange kind of relief when Ryuk shows up. Someone who knows. Someone Light doesn’t have to hide himself from.

Ryuk has promised Light death, in the end. But Light is human; he’s always been destined to die. That’s nothing new.

More importantly, Ryuk is someone who can see how much work Light has been doing, how much thought he’s put into this, how brilliant his plan is. He’s someone Light can actually _talk_ to.

It’s freeing, being able to talk about his goal, the sleepless nights he’s prepared to endure to achieve it. It reminds him that he’s doing all this for a reason.

Ryuk doesn’t offer any sympathy. But it helps more than Light would have expected, knowing that somebody’s listening.

-

In his dream that night, Light has shinigami wings. He flies up and up and up, watching the cities dwindle below him. The people are looking up at him, grateful to be living in a world free of crime.

Perhaps a little afraid, too. But grateful.

He wakes up with a clearer head than he’s had in days.


End file.
